The documentary "A Life Apart: Hasidism in America" begins and
ends with the complex spectacle of a big, ritualized wedding within
the world of Hasidic Jews. It's a tribute to the film's
illuminating powers that this ceremony is liable to seem quite
different by the end of 96 minutes than it does at first.

The filmmakers, Menachem Daum and Oren Rudavsky, take a while to
penetrate the strange and sometimes off-putting aspects of the
Hasidic world. Initially accentuating the alienness of Hasidic garb
and the public aloofness of Hasidic people, the film states:
"Hasidim are a minority within a minority. They arouse controversy
among other Jews." (Narration is read variously by Leonard Nimoy
and Sarah Jessica Parker.) "Who are they? Why have they stubbornly
refused to join America's mainstream?"

Such questions take on added force with the film's first view of
Hasidim as strange and stubborn outsiders. But this documentary,
with its essentially rosy emphasis on loving families and spiritual
joy, gradually develops a revealing overview.

Lucid connections are made between American Hasidim and the
post-Holocaust exodus from Europe, at a time when the sect's future
might have seemed in doubt. Wary as the rabbinic intelligentsia had
once been of America, with its rampant consumerism and libertine
ways, it became a necessary refuge. And Hasidim wishing to preserve
their culture intact were forced into strictures that look
particularly extreme by American standards. "I say to myself,
these are the urban Puritans," says Prof. Arthur Hertzberg, one of
the articulate scholars interviewed here, as he compares Hasidim to
the Amish and to the religious refugees of the Mayflower.

"A Life Apart," which will later be broadcast on PBS,
inevitably explores the extreme forms of denial that govern Hasidic
life, particularly those that pertain to women. While some women
here speak glowingly of their primary duty to be Jewish mothers,
others complain about the barring of women from wider roles in
religious life. Pearl Gluck, a thoughtful young woman who has left
the Hasidic community in which she was reared, is one of several
thoughtful critics of Hasidic narrow-mindedness. Another woman
wonders why, if motherhood is so exalted, mothers cannot be among
the group's rebbes, or spiritual leaders.

In addition, a black Prospect Park employee in Brooklyn cites
"spiritual arrogance" and the refusal of Hasidic children even to
say hello. "What's that going to mean as far as the community that
they live in?" he reasonably asks. Yet this film ultimately
fathoms such stubborness, even as it wonders how strict Hasidic men
can work in electronics stores where they violate certain religious
rules to make peace with secular America. Nowhere in their
teachings is there protocol for doing business with good-looking,
flashily dressed female customers (for modesty's sake, Hasidic
women are required to wear wigs and long hemlines). Or for saying,
"Have a nice day."

"A Life Apart" enlivens its history and analysis with
surprisingly tender family scenes, with evocations of the Hasidic
world's deep mysticism, and with some of the community's most
colorfully quaint features, like formal matchmaking. Chips Gold,
official matchmaker, shows off her file cards and proudly explains
that in a world where men devote themselves wholly to prayer and
scholarship, she has to marry off more boys than girls. Either way,
the hard sell is one of her basic skills. "What do you mean she's
not pretty?" Ms. Gold insists to one dubious client. "She's
gorgeous!"

A LIFE APART

Produced and directed by Menachem Daum and Oren Rudavsky;
written by Daum and Robert Seidman; director of photography,
Rudavsky; edited by Ruth Schell; music by Yale Strom; released by
First Run Features. Running time: 96 minutes. This film is not
rated.